Windows 7 Milestone 3 Build 6801 Review

So far I'm very impressed with build 7000. I did the usual tweaks and now have my Vista sidebar back, plus Quicklaunch, which I believe they'll reintroduce in build 7025 by popular demand. I activated Windows Mail, which is installed but dormant, they want you to use Windows Live Mail, which I can't stand.
 
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You got the sidebar working? I think they took that out though you can still use free-floating gadgets...

We'll haft to write up a guide i'm sure for tweaking Win7 when it comes out to get back all of the Vista functionality they have seemed to remove.
 
It involved taking ownership of files, then replacing several with Vista files etc. etc. There's a tute on the Seven Forums site: http://www.sevenforums.com/

That and enabling Windows Mail only really can be done by someone, like me, who has Vista already on their system.

They disabled the sidebar in W7 but the files are still there. I prefer a sidebar because I can still drag a gadget off it and drop it elsewhere if I want.
 
I thought they ditched the sidebar because it used too much resource, and was essentially pointless because the gadgets can free float anyway. Why do you want the resource gobbler back ?
There's nothing to stop you positioning the gadgets as if they were in a sidebar, without it actually having to be there.
 
It doesn't use any more resources than the gadgets alone would use, in my setup anyway and I prefer to be able to call up/dismiss all my gadgets at once rather than go hunting for them individually.

The sidebar.exe is present in Windows 7, just not active, as with WinMail.
 
Mine just start automatically and go to the same place on the desktop in W7 as in Vista (sans sidebar).
I never turn them off individually or en-mass, so the lack of a sidebar is a benefit.
In Vista, it periodically gets itself screwed at startup, with one gadget hiding another, and having to be right clicked and moved to its normal slot.
Without a sidebar to auto-float up and down in, W7 gadgets always stay where you put them. I much prefer its disappearance.
 
I guess I should have tried them without for a while. My first impressions was I didn't like them that way.
Ah well, wait for the next edition of W7 and start all over again!
 
I like the free floating gadgets because many of them could display more of thier contents that way than when they are pinned to a sidebar limited in size. But thats just my opinion. I actually don't use gadgets at all anymore for some of the same reasons you hate sidebar Terry. I get a noticable performance boost at startup when its not having to load the sidebar and than the gadgets themselves.

Than again, sidebar does have its benefits, the one reason primarly was the ability to have it viewable at all times no matter what you had open.
 
I never had it "on top", so that aspect is no different with it missing in W7.
I did notice something strange though. W7 task manager shows it running anyway, so I wonder if all they've done is made it "invisible" ?
 
Did you all know about the "waggle the window" feature of W7 ?
I only heard of it today when a free CD with a magazine offered a freeware version to port to Vista.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, Grab a window and waggle it. (you'll need more than one window to see what the feature is)
Then give it another waggle to restore the status quo ante.
 
Just tried. Funny... if it does have it I don't got it enabled. Unless you're referring to how you can grab a window and pin it to either side of the screen by dragging it there.

Edit: well I guess it kinda does... just don't notice much. How do you get two or more windows to do it?
 
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Hmm... here's something cool. They've completely overhauled the calculator. No more having to have multiple windows of it open to keep track of answers with new history feature like most nicer calculators have. Its even got a "programmer" calculator and conversion betwen units is a lot nicer now.

And Wordpads starting to look more and more like Word with the lack of 4 or so tabs. It even uses the "balloon" for its main menu and you change setting much like you'd do in Office.

The only new default gadget I've seen so far is Windows Media Center, which is basically a way to quickly jump to a paticular place in media center from the gadget, like music or videos.
 

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How hard did you waggle Jus ?
All the other windows minimize on the first waggle, then restore on the second.
 
Oh never mind now , I get what you're saying :smile:. I thought you could make eye candy just by moving the window around like crazy like you can do in Ubuntu, but I guess you were just referring to the window effects while you're restoring/minimizing windows.
 
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